


what is that song you sing for the dead?

by orphan_account



Series: a cardinal hits the window [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: (“You know,” Sokka starts. “Your dad told me I should talk to you. I feel like such a fucking asshole. Your dad- he lost your mom, and then he lost you, and he’s still giving me advice on how to deal with it.”The moon doesn’t respond.)Or: the beginnings of recovery.
Relationships: (past), Sokka/Yue (Avatar)
Series: a cardinal hits the window [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1939141
Comments: 45
Kudos: 248





	what is that song you sing for the dead?

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya!  
> This is a continuation of my story “a cardinal hits the window”, and probably won’t make much sense unless you read it first. 
> 
> Huge thank you to @agentcalliope (AO3 and tumblr) for beta-ing this for me!! 
> 
> Title is taken from the Sufjan Stevens songs “Death with Dignity”

Sokka’s stomach hurts.

This is a pretty normal occurrence, at this point. He wakes up- if he goes to sleep at all- with a clenched stomach. He drags himself to school with a clenched stomach, and pointedly does not look at the empty seat next to him. He comes home and makes small talk with whatever adult decides they need to make sure he’s ‘doing alright’ with a clenched stomach.

He curls in tighter, and his fingers find the small pendant around his neck, holding tighter and tighter until the edges dig painfully into his skin. 

His phone buzzes next to him. 

**_Suki at 6:34 PM_ **

Zuko and I are going to run some errands for Uncle. Wanna come with? 

Sokka doesn’t respond.   
  


* * *

There’s a light knock on the door before it opens, spilling light into his dark room. 

“Hey, Sokka,” Bato says softly. “Dinner’s ready.” 

“Not hungry.” 

“Your dad swung by the store and got some ice cream, are you sure-” 

“Bato, I’m not hungry.” Sokka repeats, and it grates to even say it. 

His throat is raw these days, too. 

There’s a soft hand that pushes back his short hair, falling out of its wolf’s tail, and it’s gone as quick as it came. 

“Alright. I’ll put aside a plate for you.” 

The door closes, and his room is dark again.   
  


* * *

“I’m really worried about him, Koda.” Bato says quietly. 

It’s late. Sokka shouldn’t be up still. Shouldn’t be hearing this conversation right outside his bedroom door. But his eyes are too dry and his stomach hurts and the idea of going to sleep is as laughable as somehow waking up and realizing this has all been the worst nightmare of his life. So, instead, he’s curled up in bed, his old lacrosse sweatshirt wrapped around him, the collar pulled up over his nose. 

It still smells like lavender. 

“He just needs time.” Dad says. “There isn’t anything we can do to make this better.” 

“No, but he’s barely eating, there’s no way he’s sleeping, he’s failing half his classes- Katara told me that he’s been avoiding his friends, too.” 

There’s a long silence, and then Dad sighs, heavy. 

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” Dad says quietly. “Yue’s therapist apparently recommended that Sokka and the rest of Yue’s friends see a grief counselor.” 

“He’s not gonna like that.” 

“No.” Dad admits. “But what else can we do?” 

After a few minutes, the door to his bedroom opens again. Sokka shuts his eyes, makes an effort to level out his breathing. 

Maybe Dad can see right through him, but he doesn’t call him out on it. Instead, he sniffles, and Sokka’s bed dips, before there’s a kiss pressed to his forehead. 

His door shuts again. 

Sokka waits until the lights have all been turned out, and the door to Bato and Dad’s bedroom shut, before he turns over. Before he pulls the pillow over his face to muffle the sobs that rush from his chest, unbidden.   
  


* * *

He’s not doing so hot in school. 

How could he? 

How could he possibly pretend like he gives a flying fuck about a history test when Yue is-

When Yue-  


Sokka’s vision is getting blurry. 

He puts down his pencil and rubs his eyes, before glancing up at the clock. 2:34 AM. 

His room is stifling, all of a sudden, like the air’s been sucked out, and the chain around his neck is choking him, and the idea of sitting at this desk and going over his notes again is making his chest constrict, so Sokka gets up, pulls his lacrosse sweatshirt over his head, and opens his window, climbing out onto the roof. 

The air is a little bit biting tonight. It stings at his cheeks and his wet eyes, but it makes the knot in his stomach dissipate, if just by a little bit. 

He wraps his arms around his knees and tilts his head up at the barely-visible moon. 

“You know,” Sokka starts. “Your dad told me I should talk to you.” 

The moon doesn’t respond. 

“I feel like such a fucking asshole.” Sokka manages to rasp out, even as he digs his nails into his skin. “Your dad- he lost your mom, and then he lost you, and he’s still giving _me_ advice on how to deal with it.” 

His phone lights up, and when Sokka picks it up, some portion of him is waiting to see a small yellow crescent moon appear on the screen. But it’s just Zuko, telling him to get some sleep. He drags down the sob that wells up in his throat and puts his phone down again. 

“I don’t want to deal with it.” Sokka whispers. “I don’t want-” He drops his head down. “It’s not fair. I miss you so much.” 

The window creaks, and Sokka turns his head to the side to find Dad, climbing through. Dad settles himself on the roof next to him, as if this is a normal thing to do. 

“Thought I’d find you out here.” Dad says. 

“How did you know?” Sokka rasps out, and Dad knocks his shoulder against his. 

“You’ve been doing this since you were little, Sokka. You think I don’t pay attention to my kids?” 

It’s quiet for a moment. Dad seems perfectly content to sit in Sokka’s silence without a hint of discomfort. 

“I just-” Sokka starts. “I don’t know how to do this.” 

“Do what?” Dad asks. 

“How to live.” His throat is tight. His eyes are stinging. He presses the point of the moon into his neck. “Without her.” 

It makes him so angry, sometimes. To turn on the TV and see that that life has continued on in the outside world. To go on Instagram and see his classmate out at parties, posting stories and selfies. To hear Katara laugh when Aang’s over, or Bato crack a joke over breakfast. 

What right have they, what right does anyone have, to continue on as if Yue didn’t die, pale-faced and barely lucid in her father’s arms when one of the many tumors eating away at her cut off the blood supply to her heart, the air to her lungs?

Why didn’t the world stop the minute she stopped breathing? 

(Why didn’t Sokka?) 

“One day at a time.” Dad says. “That’s all you can do.” 

“I can’t.” Sokka can’t look at him, it hurts too much. “Dad, I-I-” 

“When the accident happened,” Dad said quietly. “It hurt every second of every day. When I got to the hospital, and some social worker put Katara in my arms, and some doctor told me that your mom was gone- I thought I was done. Every part of me hurt, and I thought it would never, ever stop hurting. Sokka,” 

Dad turns towards him. 

“Sokka, do you know how much you look like your mother?” 

Sokka stares at him.

“I don’t have freckles.” Dad says softly, touching the ring that’s perpetually strung around his neck. “Mom did. You have her eyes. I see her everytime I look at you.” 

Sokka thinks about the shock of pain that goes through him everytime he passes a picture of Yue hanging in the hallway. Everytime a dumb selfie of them pops up on his memories. 

The sheer, utter agony of watching a video of her at camp last summer, leading a call-and-repeat song with the kids, eyes bright, hair in frizzy braids, the face paint Sokka did for her smeared over her nose 

“I’m sorry.” Sokka whispers. His eyes sting again, and Dad shakes his head. 

“ _No,_ Sokka.” Dad says fiercely. “No, it is _such_ a blessing to see your mom in you.” 

“But-” Sokka looks down. “Doesn’t it hurt?” 

Dad smiles sadly. 

“It did, right after she died. But it doesn’t now.” 

Sokka doesn’t think he’ll ever stop feeling like someone’s stabbing him between the ribs every time he sees a flash of bright-white hair hair. 

“I know it feels like you’ll never stop hurting.” Dad says, and his voice is thick, like he’s close to tears, and Sokka can’t handle that, he really can’t. “But I _promise_ you, it won’t always feel like this.” 

“But-” Sokka can barely see through the haze of tears. “I don’t want to forget her, I _can’t_ -” 

“You won’t.” Dad interrupts. “But you’ll be able to remember her without feeling like the pain is so great, you won’t last another second. It’s not about forgetting. It’s just about healing.” 

“It just doesn’t feel like it’ll ever get better.” Sokka manages to get out, before he breaks, and suddenly, the tight feeling in his chest that he’s been suppressing for hours, erupts out in a raspy sob. “Dad, I just want her back so bad, it just _hurts_ , and I don’t think it’s gonna get better-” 

Dad pulls him into a tight hug, puts a hand on the back of his head. 

“I know it does.” Dad says quietly. “I know.” 

* * *

**_  
Zuko at 8:09 AM_ **

Suki and I are blowing off first period. Come meet us at the tea shop? 

Sokka barely glances down at his phone lighting up as he chews the tasteless waffle in his mouth mechanically. He and Dad had been up till at least 4 AM yesterday, which made the whole “getting up at 7 for school” thing almost impossible. 

Katara looks down at his phone when it buzzes up again, and raises her eyebrows. 

  
“Dad, Zuko’s trying to get Sokka to skip first period,” She informs their father, who’s come into the kitchen half-dressed for work, and steals Bato’s cup of coffee directly out of his hands. Sokka scowls at her, but Katara just ignores him. 

“Is he?” Dad says mildly. “What for?” 

“Doesn’t matter.” Sokka mumbles. “I’m just gonna go to school.” 

“They’re having coffee at Iroh’s shop.” Katara swipes his phone before Sokka can get it off the table. “Iroh’s making muffins.” 

“Hm.” Dad says thoughtfully. “What do you have first period?” 

“Calculus.” Katara supplies, when Sokka fails to answer. 

Dad and Bato sit down at the table, and Dad reaches over to fix his wolf’s tail. 

“Go.” He says, and Sokka looks up in surprise. “Go spend time with your friends.” 

“Oh.” Sokka says, and he’s too surprised by Dad’s casual approval of teen delinquency to say no. “Uh, okay?” 

* * *

  
Iroh’s shop is quiet this morning, which Sokka thinks is deeply weird, since it’s usually the busiest tea shop in the neighborhood, until he realizes there’s a CLOSED sign on the door. 

“Hello?” He calls as he walks on. 

“Is that you, Sokka?” Suki’s voice sounds from the backroom. 

“No, someone saw the closed sign and walked in anyway.” Zuko’s voice retorts.

“Nephew.” Iroh says gravely. “Do not underestimate the selective vision that customers will employ, when they so choose.” 

Iroh bustles around the corner first, and breaks into a smile when he sees Sokka, arms opening wide. 

“Oh, my dear boy.” Iroh says softly, and before Sokka can move, Iroh has him in a tight embrace, and _fuck_ , there are already tears in his eyes, Sokka can’t, _he can’t-_

“Please.” Sokka manages to gasp out, but Iroh just holds tighter for a moment. When he lets go, he somehow already has a tissue on hand, like he saw this coming. He gives Sokka a sad little smile. 

“I’m so sorry you’re experiencing this pain, Sokka.” Iroh says. “I wish I could take it from you.” 

“It’s okay.” Sokka says, and Iroh shakes his head, and Sokka remembers, quite suddenly, that Iroh has lost both his wife and his son. 

“It’s not, and it’s alright that it’s not.” Iroh says. 

Sokka didn’t even see them enter the room after Iroh, but Suki and Zuko are attached to him within seconds. When they let go, Sokka has to dig the heels of his hands into his eyes and take a few deep breaths. 

“Come, come,” Iroh says, handing him another tissue. “The muffins should be cool enough to eat by now.” 

* * *

  
It’s so nice, and so weird, to sit in Iroh’s backroom, with a cup of strong black tea Iroh brewed especially for him, and a half-eaten muffin on his plate. Suki and Zuko seem perfectly happy to chatter to Iroh enough for all of them, and Sokka gets to sit in between them, and just focus on the notes of citrus in the tea, the soft classical music that Iroh perpetually listens to. 

“-okka?” Suki nudges him, and Sokka drags his head up. 

“Hmm?” He asks. 

“I was just asking if you remembered that time last year when you guys had a lacrosse game like an hour away, and Zuko got a nosebleed, and-” 

The front of Zuko’s jersey had been stained a nice, rusty red by the time they got to the field, and the other team had been absolutely terrified of him, leaving him to score nearly half the goals that day, and Zuko had thought it was so funny, playing it up, not even coming off the field when his nose started bleeding again- 

Sokka laughs. 

It leaves his mouth without permission. 

And he immediately claps a hand over his mouth as a sharp pain in his stomach makes him want to double over, and tears are already in his eyes again, and fuck, fuck, _fuck-_

“Sokka?” Suki asks gently. There’s a hand on his shoulder, and Sokka wants so badly to jerk away from the touch, to curl up somewhere dark and small where no one can see him as his head implodes from the inside-out. 

Yue had found it hilarious, when Sokka told her. And then she had scolded Zuko about playing with a nosebleed and offered to get the stains out, leaning over the little sink in the art room with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide while Sokka sat on a table behind her and teased her. 

“I can’t-” He gasps out, when someone asks him if he’s okay, again, because how the _fuck_ is he supposed to be okay, he can’t even breath, he can’t even- 

“It’s alright, Sokka.” Iroh is saying. “It’s okay. Take as much time as you need.” 

All the time in the world won’t dull the perpetual stabbing between his ribs where his heart used to take residence. 

“I don’t get it.” He mumbles into someone’s shoulder, because his eyes are blurred over and there’s no point in wiping away these tears- they’ll always return. “I don’t get it.”

“Don’t get it?” Suki asks. 

“Why-” Sokka curls in further into the shoulder. He’s going to throw up. He’s going to pass out. “Why it _happened._ She didn’t do anything wrong, she was so _good,_ and-and she wanted to go to Art school, and she- she was only sixteen, and it hurt her so bad. Everyone kept telling me she wasn’t in pain when she passed, but she was _always_ in pain, and she was only sixteen. I didn’t even get to-” 

  
He cuts off. 

  
“Didn’t get to?” Iroh prompts. 

“I just wanted more time.” Sokka whispers, and his fingers close of his own accord around the little moon, like that will make her, decaying somewhere underground, any closer to him. “I wanted so much more time.”

Someone’s stroking his hair, and Sokka can’t bear to lift his head up and open his eyes and re-enter a reality where Yue is gone, and Sokka is still here to deal with the aftermath.   
  


* * *

They end up not going to school. Sokka feels drained, like he’s ran a marathon, and when he finally looks up, Zuko’s face is puffy and red, and Suki can’t meet his eyes. Iroh gently suggests they go watch a movie upstairs while he calls them out from the rest of their classes. 

Suki, as always, is the most put-together, so she’s the one that directs them to the couches in the living room while she turns on the most mundane, topical show she can find on Netflix, and gets all of them glasses of water. 

Suki and Zuko pass out within a few episodes, even while the sun rises higher in the sky. 

Sokka sits, Suki’s head by his thigh, and stares blankly at the screen. It feels like there’s nothing in his veins. In his lungs. In his head. 

Iroh opens the shop a few hours late, but still finds time to come upstairs around lunchtime with a tray laden with sandwiches and bubble tea. He places it on the table in front of Sokka, and pauses, brushing Zuko’s hair out of his face. 

“It’s very difficult to witness your pain.” Iroh says quietly, and it takes a great deal of effort for Sokka to move his eyes over to him. 

“I’m sorry.” He manages to get out. His throat is so raw. 

“Don’t you dare apologize.” Iroh shakes his head. “Don’t, ever. I’m sure you know that my hand in life has been made heavy with a great deal of unexpected loss. As has Zuko’s, though it’s a different kind. It’s difficult to witness, Sokka, because it reminds me of the pain I have been through, and have had to watch others go through.” 

“How do you live?” The question leaves Sokka’s mouth before he can stop it, but Iroh doesn’t look offended or upset. 

“I don’t think it comes as a surprise to you that it’s not easy. There is no fix. You have to just keep existing, and, eventually, your pain becomes less acute.” Iroh smiles thinly, his hand stilling on Zuko’s forehead. “The first few months after Zuko was injured, the burn hurt him every second of every minute of every day. It overtook everything else- there was just the pain of having half of his face burned away. But as time went on, he began to heal. He won’t ever be the same- the location of his burn has made sure of that- but he _healed._ It hurt less frequently, and he was able to start living again, instead of just surviving.” 

“But it still hurts him, sometimes.” Sokka says, because some days, the nerve pain in Zuko’s face is almost unbearable, and he can’t bear to have anything or anyone touch it, let alone leave his bed and function. 

  
“It does.” Iroh admits. “I suspect it will for the rest of his life. But it will become less frequent, and more bearable, as time goes on.” 

“What if-” Sokka swallows thickly and pulls his sweatshirt up over his nose. “What if I don’t think I can get to the point where it hurts less?” 

“You can.” Iroh says firmly, and takes a deep, long breath, before he turns to Sokka. “Yue was an incredible young woman, who loved you very deeply. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she would want you to heal and live a good, happy life, Sokka.” 

“But-” Sokka can barely force out the next part. “She didn’t _.”_

“No.” Iroh admits. “No, Yue did not. That doesn’t mean you can’t, though it doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s _not_ fair.” 

“It’s not. I wish I could make it fair, dear boy.” Iroh says. “I can’t. Nothing about what happened to your friend makes sense, nor is it fair. But what is a better way to honor Yue’s memory? To live in constant pain and guilt that she is gone and you are not, or to live fully, the way she would have wanted you to?” 

“I just feel like I can’t.” Sokka whispers. 

“I know.” Iroh says, and places a sandwich and a tea in front of him, patting his cheek. “But you will. Eventually, I promise, you will.”  


* * *

Bato ruffles his hair when he walks into the kitchen, hours later, and doesn’t say anything about how red his eyes are. 

When Dad pops his head into his room and tells him dinner is ready, Sokka goes downstairs. He still doesn’t eat much, but he sits next to Gran-gran and listens to her talk about her plans for the garden in the front lawn, and doesn’t feel like he needs to bolt. 

The night is still harder. 

He’s staring up at the ceiling when his door creaks open, and Katara stands in his doorway, in one of Mom’s old sweatshirts, sniffling quietly. 

  
“C’mon, Kat.” He whispers, and pulls one of his pillows out from under his head to put on the other side of the bed. Katara is silent as she climbs up on his bed and hugs her stuffed bison to her chest. 

The constellations above them barely have any glow left, but in the complete darkness of his room, he can almost make out the Ursa Major above him. Katara burrows into his blankets and they don’t talk much at all, until Katara falls asleep. Sokka looks up at the ceiling until his eyes hurt. 

His phone buzzes beside him, and there’s no little yellow crescent moon on the screen, but Sokka looks anyways. 

**_Suki to Zuko, Sokka at 12:21 AM_ **

Does anyone want to go to Michael’s with me tomorrow?

I thought we could make a scrapbook for Arnook. Maybe get some flowers for Yue? 

Sokka stares at screen for a couple of minutes, before he forces himself to reply. He switches his phone off before Suki answers, and turns on his side, bringing the pendant to his face and pressing the moon to his lips. 

**_Sokka at 12:28 AM_ **

yeah. 

Let’s go see Yue.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyways
> 
> My tumblr is @ ta1k-less. Feel free to yell @ me there :)


End file.
